One of my gripes when I switched to using a Mac full time was that I could never get my mouse to track fast enough. Here is a solution that worked for me.
- Open a Terminal Window
- Enter the following command to see what your current setting is:
defaults read -g com.apple.mouse.scaling
- This will return a numeric value. To speed up (or slow down) your mouse tracking, you can simply change this number accordingly by typing the following command, replacing the “your_mouse_speed” with a new number such as 5.0. Notice that read has been changed to write:
defaults write -g com.apple.mouse.scaling your_mouse_speed
- The maximum mouse speed on mac desktops is 3.0 (when maxed out in system preferences). I changed my speed to 5.0 for my 24″ iMac and it was noticeably better.
defaults write -g com.apple.mouse.scaling 5.0
- You may need to restart your mac to see the changes take effect.
Update Jan 2010 : This method also works with the new magic mouse as well.
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nice tip..thanks!
Exactly what I need. Speed up my mouse. Just one problem. What is a terminal window? How do I get too it? Can you give me better instructions?
From the finder menu, choose Go -> Utilities -> Terminal
Didn’t work.
after setting the new mouse speed value, tru to logout and login back to reload configuration (works for me, after doing that). Gr8 tip tyler.
Thank you
You’re welcome Joey – Hey cool deal putting a mini in your prius http://www.joeyjbarrett.com/prius/
Did it have any heat issues?
That was a really cool idea putting the mini in the prius. Pretty sweet hack.
Just wanted to say thanks for the tip. It worked great for me with 10.6 and trying to make my new Magic Mouse usable.
Glad it helped Mike!
another “thank you” – worked a treat for me, much happier with the mouse speed now
Your welcome Kris!
Nice… Been looking for something like this. What exactly does the -g flag do though?
Hi Sean,
-gd is the same as -globalDomain
Tyler
hey! That worked. I pushed it up to 7.0 and wow I don’t have to lift up the mouse anymore. Thanks.
Glad it worked for you, Dave.
Thanks so much Tyler! Works like a dream on my new 27″ iMac. Like B Dave said, it’s so nice to no longer have to pick the mouse up every ten seconds.
You’re welcome Jimmy. I am envious of your 27″ iMac!
Thanks a lot for this tip!
Hint for others: I had to restart my iMac before it worked.
How is that terminal command used to see the value already there?
Never mind. Found it in terminal help and “man”.
Just substitute “write” with “read”.
Tnx for the tip anyway. It works perfectly.
Thanks for pointing that out Geo. I have updated the instructions to first read what the setting is before changing it.
Hi,
Thanks a lot Tyler, this is exactly what I need. I changed the speed for both trackpad and mouse. But I have problems to keep this setting. It works perfectly and then it just goes back to 3 again..
Do you know why?
Hi,
Great tip. Yesterday I’ve bought my very first Mac and it’s a big one iMac 27″ (core i5) and was wondering why the mouse was so slow cos this supposed to be a fast machine and I was used to a supermouse on my pc
Tx to your tip i’m lookin’ for a speed that fits my needs for now I’m at 8.0
Danny (Belgium)
Glad it worked for you Danny. Congrats on the 27″ iMac. Thats a great system!
works great make sure you restart comp after. thanks for the tip much improved
Genius Bar person. Thanks
Fantastic. It now works the way I want it. It was driving me nuts. Good to see others had the same problem too. I can’t work with a slow mouse. Thanks.
thanks very helpful!
works! I have 19″ mac book pro and it worked for me with 29.0 I need a really fast mouse
thanks
this works pretty well, thanks. do you know if there is a way to change the actual scale that is used in the systems setting dialog box for the mouse? i went back and found that it, in fact, is still using the old scaling and i can no longer use that to adjust the tracking speed once i have entered your command.
hi, i have a problem….
if i don’t switch on the mouse before starting my mac, my computer doesn’t recognize my mouse. and i have to go to system preferences to make my mac recognize it, but then my mouse returns to be slowly…. so i have to restart my computer again to work your terminal’s tip.
any ideas to my problem??
thanks
Thanks! I just got a new IMac and I was considering returning it because I am unhappy with the font size in the email and the mouse speed. Is there any way to also increase the size of words and numbers on the Internet or make them the same size one every page? I tried adjusting the resolution and size but everything would look good on one page but lousy on another page. Everything will either spread out too much or look like parts of the numbers or letters are clumped up. Will I also have the same problem with size if I get Word, Excel, or Access on the IMac? Will installing Windows have any effect?
iMac 27″ – works perfect with 5.0 after restart.
Thank you!
Hi Looks good, however iget a rather unusuall error message
The domain/default pair of (kCFPreferencesAnyApplication, com.apple.mouse.scaling) does not exist
Any ideas??
Thanks in advance
Thanks! Works like a charm!
Thanks! Worked a treat!!
Thanks a lot! It works like a charm on a OS X 10.6
All you have to do is set it then logout and log back in.
Thanks! Exactly what I need.
Hi,
Thanks for a nice tip. The question is, why it’s not possible to set mouse speed via mouse settings in GUI?
I’m looking for a way to speed up my typing on the Mac–this is the first web page I’ve come across that addresses anything like this. I’m coming from a PC environment where I work mostly with keyboard shortcuts, and for example will often use option+shift to select words and replace or otherwise manipulate them. However, on the Mac I’m really frustrated because I can’t work nearly as fast as I can on the PC–the actual typing speed (i.e., the rate at which my typing is registered on the screen) is slower than I’d like, and so is the process of selecting and cutting and pasting. In addition, when I’m working quickly, the cursor will often disappear entirely and I’ll have to stop for a few seconds and “find” it so I can keep track of what I’m doing.
Clearly, the Mac is not made for people who use primarily word processors. Is there a way to fix typing speed similar to this mouse speed trick? TIA
Thanks man it’s really help!
Just bought a new iMac 2 weeks ago, first time I have Mac though.
Stressed about magic mouse, really slow in my opinion.
I set for 24.0 on a OS X 10.6, a bit crazy I think; but it’s suit my need:
defaults write -g com.apple.mouse.scaling 24.0
Have a blessed day!
great tip. worked like a charm!!
It’s still way too slow! Is there anything I can do? I’m on Lion 10.7.3 beta and 10.7.2 retail. I need it about 50-100% faster (for speed chess).